Taken to Lemora by Elizabeth Stephens
1
Halima
A ripping sound. No. It isn’t a sound, it’s just ripping. Ripping the world. Ripping me. Crrrrrack. Right down the middle.
The pain of it shocks my whole body, like I’ve been punched in the chest and that fist tastes like metal and blood and is screaming my name. It must be my name because even through the warped pronunciation that my ears reject, I recognize that name. I know it on a deep, fundamental level. Just like I know that I have a soul and that soul is pulled together by skin and this combination of soul-wrapped skin is what makes me human.
I’m human and my name is Halima.
“Halima!”
Her pronunciation is all wrong. It’s a deep haa — not a short ha — followed by a laam, yaa, meem and rounded off with a ta’marbouta. But the woman screaming can’t help her pronunciation because she’s speaking English and my name is Arabic.
English. Arabic. Huh.
“Halima, can you hear me?”
Yes, I can hear you, but my name is not ha — with a flat a — limb-uh, my name is hhhaah-leem-a, as my mother once spoke it.
Mother.
I can place the word’s meaning, but can’t seem to conjure the memory of the mother who first told me my own name. The mother who was once mine. When I reach for her, all I see is a hand drawing a ha so elegantly, that flattened roof over the generous curve below — but it’s only drawn in this way when the letter exists in isolation…
The hand rustles the paper beneath it as it draws the ha again, but this time with a pointed roof that slopes down before reaching back up to form the laam that is the second letter of my name. Yaa, meem, and ta’marbouta follow. It’s light brown, this hand. The same light brown as mine. Halima, she
writes for me.
I reach again through the fog of my memory, past the chasm of so many vocabularies competing for voice — Cantonese, English, Wolof, Farsi, Turkish, Hindi, Korean, French, Spanish, and my mother tongue, Egyptian Arabic — but when I reach, reach, reach to grab it, that hand changes, becoming larger and callused and menacing and a darker brown than it was.
It stretches towards me from up above, grabs onto the front of my shirt, heaves me upright, and then pulls harder. I fly. I lurch. I gag. I choke. I can’t breathe. My eyes roll back and my stomach pitches as I’m dragged out of some kind of bed or maybe a bath — a glass case full of liquid that’s an unnatural, neon blue.
“Halima, can you hear me?” The voice screeches over the sound of screeching.
I clear my throat, draw on my knowledge of English, and answer. No, I don’t. I choke.
My lungs sear and my torso revolts. I feel like I was reborn in a blue that sticks like sap instead of in the womb of a mother that I no longer know. I squeeze my eyes shut again and reach, reach, reach for the image of that hand drawing an elegant ha and I know that if I can just get there, everything will be alright, but…
“Haddock!” The woman roars and her dark hand is met with a second one, this one lighter and larger and rougher.
“Will she survive if you remove the breathing tube?” The woman’s face comes into view on my next blink. Dark brown skin, head just as balled as the man’s standing beside her. Her eyes are bright white and so are her teeth, but when she looks at me, I can see a pupil that’s fully blown, subsuming the brown iris that guards it.
The man beside her has white skin and is equally, terrifyingly hairless. It makes me wonder what I look like. Am I just as bare and exposed as all the others? Do I, too, lack the visual markings needed to identify me?
His green gaze roams over my face. His mouth is pursed into a murderous line, lips thin in contrast to the woman’s at his side. An alarm sounds somewhere behind him — another alarm. Something crashes, metal tears, voices scream in so many clashing intonations.
My gaze swivels listlessly to the corner of the room, following the man called Haddock’s stare to a cluster of bald people standing in the corner. Where are we? The room around us is big and full of tanks that are either open and empty or shattered and full of a liquid that that’s no longer blue, but stained with a darker, more terrifying color. Blood. It’s blood.
I cough, though there’s something in my mouth choking me that I can’t speak around, and the sound brings Haddock’s attention back to me. He blinks several times and shakes his head quickly.
“We don’t have a choice, Kenya,” he says to the woman. I’m on my side, on some kind of table. It’s hard and I can hear it bending beneath me. Behind me, hands work at something in my butt and then free it. My butt cheeks clench together. My pants are drawn back up over my hips.
“She matters,” Kenya says sternly, tone nearly one of reprimand.
Haddock bites his front teeth together and spits, “We all matter. That’s why we were chosen. But right now, we need to get the fuck out of here before they breach.”
“I have orders from the general, doctor. Just do it!”
“They’ve breached!” Comes a new voice, another woman this time. She has no hair and pale skin that seems unnaturally pale. Based on her accent alone, I’d have guessed she was Korean. Without hair or even eyelashes, it’s hard to discern anything about any of these beings. We’re all the same bald, wet things, covered in sticky blue on top of grey uniforms that have words stitched into the lapel.
Kenya Pettis. And then beneath that. First Lieutenant.
I glance at Haddock’s shirt. Haddock Schwarz. Doctor. Surgeon.
And then I glance down at my own shirt. Upside down, it takes me a few seconds to put the letters together. They’re written in the Roman alphabet, having been transliterated from Arabic. Halima Magdy. That’s my name. But perhaps, more importantly, is what’s written below. Etymologist. Interpreter.
I am Halima Magdy.
I am the interpreter.
And I can’t breathe.
I start to shake as I become aware of the reason for my restricted breathing. There’s something in my mouth. The man curses, but his hands are strong and sure as he maneuvers my head and then. Pain. That ripping returns. Ahlan wa sahlan, I think, welcoming it. He pulls and the object comes out from between my teeth, feeling very much like it excoriates my insides as he rips it free.
My back and chest heave when the tip of the thing finally clunks off of my bottom lip. I writhe and buck on the table, trying to capture oxygen, that elusive dream. My eyes roll back. There are hands on my chest, pressing. I black out. And then I’m awake and there’s a man’s mouth on my mouth. He’s breathing and I’m gasping and he wrenches back at the same time that the woman grabs my hands and pulls me off of the table. I land on my knees.
“Halima, listen to me.” My head spins. “You are one of three hundred and forty-four people selected to survive the climate apocalypse and subsequent water wars that destroyed the earth. We’ve been asleep for the past four thousand years. It should have been eleven, but we were woken up by a species of humans who survived the wars and what came after.” She shakes her head. Her upper lip is sweating. Her entire face is sweating. I’m sweating. “They’ve evolved.”
Fear. Her tone is pure fear. I can feel it screech in the breath that scrapes its bloody nails down my nostrils and throat before settling in my lungs and squeezing.
“They shouldn’t be here. They weren’t supposed to survive. No one was. But they have and now they’re going to take us. They’ve taken out most of our soldiers and, from what I’ve seen, every male commander that we had. Leanna was the colonel, but she’s the highest ranking officer left. She’s our general now. She sent me to get you.”
She glances over her shoulder, shaking mine as she moves. “Your orders are important. The most important I’ll deliver today, so listen to me, Halima. I know that you don’t know who you are. Memories were wiped when you went into the Sucere Chamber — that’s where we are now. The only selective memories left behind for any unranked Sucere member are those pertaining to your skill. Do you know what you are?”
I nod, mute, and glance down at my shirt. With a shaking finger, I point to my left breast.
“Yes. Good. You’re the interpreter.”
The interpreter because on the Sucere Chamber, there is only one.
Not mutarjima but al-mutarjima. Meem-taa-raa-jeem-meem-ta’marbouta. Jeem has always been my favorite letter. Just like a haa, but with the dot up above it. A sacred letter. Someone said that to me once, but I don’t know who. My memories no longer carry the sound of their voice.
“Your orders are to stay silent. Do not attempt to communicate with them. Just listen. Learn. We need to know their weaknesses so we can exploit them when the time is right. It’s our only chance to kill them and escape and we need you for that. Halima, when you…”
“Kenya,” the male barks, tapping one foot on the ground again and again. He’s barefoot. We all are. “We’re running out of time.”
“They’re here!” The woman in the corner who I thought might have been Korean shouts. She’s barely finished speaking before the doors explode open and they come in.
Bronze skin. Inky black hair. Thick belts, dripping with weapons, that lace around their waists. Shoes that lace up their ankles. They come like a storm, holding swords and spears and whips. The whips, they sing. People — my species of people — scream as the frayed leather ends of their whips find our sensitive flesh. Kenya forces me down, throwing her body over mine. I’m in shock for a fountain of reasons, this only being one among them.
Then, less than a heartbeat later, she’s ripped away from me and I’m ripped up onto my feet by the hair.
Pain shoots down through my scalp and continues to tear apart my lungs as I’m dragged by a man — by a male creature I can’t see — down tunnel after tunnel. There are bodies everywhere, pressed against me on all sides. Most are the bald humans in the grey uniforms that were pulled from the blue gunk like I was.
I try to catch the different names, different professions, different trades, trying to build a tower of reason in my mind, but the tower is made of splinters. Reason is too hard to find.
There’s an architect and an urban planner, a biologist and a geologist, a paleontologist and an anthropologist, an electrical engineer and an aerospace engineer. There’s even a woman with enormous blue eyes whose shirt says artist. I wonder distractedly what kind.
The rocks under the sensitive soles of my feet are cold and craggy. I stub my big toe and shoved from behind for stumbling as the male that has me pushes me down tunnel after tunnel after tunnel.
Eventually, the lights around us change. The air changes. The heat that was so oppressive before dissipates and then comes back with a vengeance and then dissipates again. We aren’t in the Sucere Chamber anymore. Maybe we haven’t been for a while. Somewhere along the way, we descended into the earth.
We’re in caves. The tunnels are narrow and frightening and hot. Some of the violent warriors carry live flames — torches — but eventually, we get to a point where the hallways widen and there are basins of fire recessed into the walls. I can’t breathe. I’m dripping sweat. My feet are stumbling and staggering over every stone.
The woman who might be Korean woman stands beside me and rattles like stone in a cage. I glance at her shirt. Jia Kim.Botanist. She’s crying without making any sound and when I reach down and lace my fingers through hers, she holds me back firmly, without question. She doesn’t know me and I don’t know her, but we’re together now. Each one a little less alone.
As we descend further into the ground, I’m forced to think of Hell.
In ancient Mesopotamia, the Sumarians believed all souls went to Kur, a large hole in the ground just like this. Maybe this is Kur, I start to think, but when we’re finally forced through an opening into an enormous cavern, I’m no longer certain. Kur is described as a dark, miserable place. But here? This cave? It’s simply beautiful. Zay al foll. As beautiful as jasmine.
Light punches into the cave through a single opening in the ceiling in strokes of pure gold. I can see sand and dust particles dancing through the light that illuminates the full expanse of the cave in brilliant brown and blue topaz. A river splits the center of the space and on the other side, flat, smooth stone leads up to a single pedestal and to the towering throne mounted on top of it — and the creature occupying it.
But even Hades was beautiful in some depictions… Maybe, it’s even the beauty of this place that makes it that much more horrible. I’m not sure where I am — I’m barely certain of who I am — but I’m afraid. Perhaps fear is my only truth.
I’m shoved further into the cave and as I sweep my gaze around, I can see that the cave is full. People — creatures — are everywhere. Everywhere. Men and women with bronze skin, black hair and whips in their hands stand around the perimeter of the massive cathedral. They watch us as we enter and I think fleetingly of Kur and Hell and Dante’s nine rungs.
Hell is heat and fire and Kur is dreary and miserable, filled with demons and dust. Hearts are weighed on Anubis’s scales in Ancient Egypt and in Tibet, one must serve in Narakas deep in the earth until one’s Karma has achieved its full result.
How heavy are our hearts?
How much karma did we waste?
What did we do in our last lives that was so wrong?
Jostling bodies part in front of me and through their curtain I finally catch a glimpse of the man on the throne, and any lingering uncertainty I had about whether or not this is the final Judgement, is erased. Here we are. This is it. Purgatory has reached its conclusion. Because even though I can’t remember the face of Allah, I know the word and its definition. And I know it’s counter in the underworld. Hades. The Devil. Baal the Prince. Azazel.
He sits in the center of this new world on top of his throne watching us as we’re brought in to face him, waiting impassively to deliver his verdict. Anubis, the devourer.
I catch a second glimpse of the creature when I’m shoved forward, closer to the river’s edge. It’s the jangling sound that pulls my attention up. He’s holding a chain in his right hand and when he jerks it, the woman caught on its other end flies into the smooth face of the stone beneath his throne. She crashes into it face first and rears back cupping her cheek. She has fire in her gaze that makes me think that, in one past life, she might have been a queen, even though in this one she’s wearing the same grey uniform as the rest of us.
Her pale head is bald, but her cheeks are flushed bright pink. It stands out against the grey and drags my attention down…down…to the red that covers the rest of her.
“Is that blood?” Jia, at my side, whispers. “Oh god, what did he do to her?” She’s shaking as we reach the river’s edge — or I am, but I don’t let go of Jia’s palm.
I don’t know her, but I don’t let go.
“Gedabegulibetihi pondari tenirodiki!” Comes the shout from behind me. I can’t interpret it, at least not fast enough to avoid the surge of pain that slashes across my back.
I’m too shocked to scream. Too shocked to do anything but absorb the pain of what feels like a thousand knives slicing me from my right shoulder blade to my left hip. I nearly fall off of the wooden bridge that crosses the river — would have, had Jia not caught me and pulled me to the safety of the stone on the other side.
I black out, but when I come to a moment later, I’m wavering on my feet, grey-uniformed people spread out to my left and right. As we’re forced into a shaky line, Jia grabs my hand in both of hers. She’s sobbing forcefully now, hard enough it shakes her chest. She tries to clap a hand over her mouth to stop the sound and stop drawing attention to us, but it doesn’t help.
She screams when the flash of the whip comes for her and drops onto her knees. I fall beside her, refusing to let go of her hand as her grip goes slack in mine.
“It’s alright, Jia,” I whisper hoarsely, but it’s a lie. It’s not alright. Anubis devours the souls of those who aren’t worthy to pass on into their next life.
The sound of laughter and rattling chains echoes across the cavern. The chain in Baal’s hand isn’t the only one present. There are other beings in here besides us grey-uniformed Sucere victims and the whip-wielding demons intent to torture us. As my gaze flits around, I notice that there are other species present — at least two, from the looks of it.
Slighter beings with charcoal-colored skin almost blend into the walls and stand in complete contrast to the creatures with blue-hued skin and white hair that falls in ratty knots to their waists. They aren’t like us — the fact that they aren’t bald or wearing uniforms all but confirms it. And they definitely aren’t like the demons. They look so different from us, from them, from each other, I wonder…I’m lost in wonder…I don’t know what to think.
I close my eyes and think of those hands, tracing that letter called jeem. Tracing my name. Spelling it for me for what might have been the very first time. How many times have I drawn it for myself since? And in how many languages? I am Egyptian, but I am the interpreter. It’s my job to find the weaknesses of the monsters containing us and liberate the captives. All the captives, regardless of their species, creed or color. They won’t die here because my name is Halima and I will not die here and I will bring them with me.
I will not die here. This is not Hell. Anubis can be defeated.
The thoughts settle the pain in my back, reducing it to a dull throb. Opening my eyes, I inhale in two jerks that rip at my lungs, that tear up my heart. But Jia’s hand is still in mine and I focus on it with everything I have as Baal finally stands from his throne. He makes his way down the line of people and, at every person, he nods to one of the four opposite corners of the chamber. On his command, that person is taken away and locked into chains that attach them to the other people crowded there.
There are a few exceptions.
Four women are pulled from the crowd and taken somewhere else. The first has a full, round figure and a rich brown skin tone. The second is very tall and thin. The third has my skin tone, but doesn’t look Egyptian or Middle Eastern — she could be South American, but I’m not sure from where I sit. The fourth is petite, but I don’t see her face or her name tag until she’s dragged too far enough away for me to identify anything about her. All I know is that all four women didn’t look bad, even bald and dripping wet and all I can hope is that they were not taken by the Devil for their beauty. Because even though I don’t know what beauty really is in this new world, I have other words in my vocabulary that are far more frightening. Words like power. Words like rape.
Jia gasps and, when I follow her gaze, I lock up, too. Baal has reached Kenya in the line and regards her now with greater consideration than even the four women he removed. Too much consideration. Kenya meets his gaze with a ferocity that terrifies me because it’s threatening and she’s our captain. She gave me my orders. Haddock had been prepared to leave me. For as long or short as it lasts, I owe her my life.
And then the Devil does something truly horrible. He smiles. He smiles and his teeth flash white against his face. His smile is beautiful and I’m sucked beyond the River Styx straight into Hades, by the man who holds the moniker himself.
“Memo lithan togo na. Memak haren higo no.” His voice is a rich rumble that makes my abdomen squeeze.
Jia says something next to me, but I can’t hear her. I’m concentrating, gears in my mind slowly coming to life as I recognize some of the words. Not all of them — not even half — but just two.
Lithan. Haren.
Lithan…
Lithan lithan lithan. It sounds like the old English word for travel. That word later evolved to laedan in the fourteenth century, which meant to guide and later found its heart in the English word leader. Leader. Is that what he’s calling Kenya now?
How he knows she’s a leader is beyond my comprehension as is the fact that, even though most of these words are not anything I’ve heard before, some of these words are most definitely rooted in English and Spanish and others, Arabic. Fascinating. Meanwhile, much of the grammar seems to be Amharic. Incredible.
“Ero, ellama merimerikeganma,” another of the giants shouts. I don’t understand any of the words, but my focus attaches itself to the first. Ero.
Ero. Ero Ero Ero.
He has a name and it’s not Baal, not Azazel, not Hades. And if he has a name, that means he’s just a creature, just an animal like the rest of us. He can bleed. He can be gutted.
Ero, the animal, looks back at the woman tied to his throne. He gives an order that prompts another barbarian to release her. Grabbing Kenya violently by the back of the neck, he throws her towards the throne and snaps his fingers.
A single spear is tossed onto the ground and lands directly between Kenya and the other women. Instincts I know not to ignore tell me that this is Leanna, our general, and that Ero has identified the two highest ranking officers left among our people. But what is his plan? Why did he release Leanna and why is he giving them a weapon?
“Fugcha,” he orders and I gasp.
“What is it?” Jia says. “Halima, what is it?”
“He wants them to fight,” I whisper back.
Kenya is first to move. She lunges for the spear, but she doesn’t attack Leanna. She lunges for Ero. Leanna moves a split second later and gathers the loose end of her chain, no longer attached to the loop on Ero’s throne. She spins it around her head like a propellor and wields it like a flail at the same time that Kenya feints and thrusts up at Ero’s stomach.
He doesn’t move until the last second. Until just an inkling of hope trickles in that these two warriors might be able to beat him.
But they don’t.
He’s weaponless, but I guess he is the weapon. He stands two heads taller than Kenya and one of his hands could easily wrap all the way around her throat. He catches the chain when it comes at him and even though the tail end smashes into his shoulder and a strip of red appears beneath it, he doesn’t even flinch.
At the same time, his other hand catches the spear just beneath the tip, stopping its path inches from his ribbed abdomen. His limbs move in perfect sync, his gaze half distracted, as if there are other things he needs to do today and this is hardly a priority.
The Devil-worshipping demons around the cave laugh, though it takes me a moment to identify it as such. Laughter. Typically a term used to describe joyous sounds, sounds of mirth. But this could sound not be farther from it. This is a terrible sound, one that reaches into chests and snuffs out all tendrils of hope and happiness like plucking dandelions.
He grins and starts to laugh that demonic laughter and I feel my soul whither a little, retreating deeper into my body where it will be safe even though safety is only an illusion here. While he laughs, Kenya and Leanna try to retract their weapons, try to attack, try to free themselves in any way, but they’re stuck and he’s laughing and they’re all laughing and Jia’s shaking so badly at my side that our sweaty, sticky palms remain locked together through fear alone — maybe adrenaline, too.
Ero rips back on his left arm and Leanna, unwilling to relinquish her weapon, goes flying. She hits the stone ground just twenty feet in front of me and, when she rolls onto her side, I see that her back is covered in brutal welts and slashes. Her shirt is shredded bloody. How many times did he whip her?
Tears well in my eyes as I look towards the monster, rage making me sweat even more. My heart thumps like a boot to the chest. I wish I could kill him. I will. But I’m not ready yet. He drags Kenya in towards him and catches her by the throat when she falls. He lifts her by the neck and tosses the spear over his shoulder absently where it’s caught by a younger male warrior. He tosses her onto the ground next to Leanna.
“Tekaroella haremu.” Haremu? Like Harem? The thought jolts and I feel words of protest surge up into my mouth as two female demons lead Leanna and Kenya away, but then I remember… Don’t give yourself away. They cannot know what languages you speak. I cage angry, violent words behind my teeth.
La’a. No. Nein. Ayi. Bu. Non. Net. I close my eyes, reach for a language that feels distant to me, settling on Turkish, then begin counting to a hundred. Bir, iki, üç, dört, beş, altı… Very quietly, I hear a soft, shaky voice whisper, “Hana, du, se, ne, daseos…” I’m counting out loud and now Jia’s counting with me in Korean. I quickly make the switch. “Yug, ilgob, yeodeolb…”
She laughs lightly and frantically under her breath and squeezes my hand so hard I think she might break my tender bones. Then I’m sure of it when I feel a shadow — a hot, enormous shadow — fall over us. I open my eyes and look up.
A wall of bronze is the first thing I see. It’s covered in light brown and pink scars that are reflective and silvery. They cover every inch of him. Some thin and fresh. Some old and thick and badly healed. The thickest one starts at his lowest rib and travels down, disappearing into his black pants. They’re woven fibers, but I can’t tell beyond that what material they are, just that they’re stained. Is that Leanna’s blood? Kenya’s?
He has three tattoos covering his stomach. Huge overlapping triangles that point down. One stretches from his nipples to his belly button, the next bisects that and stretches further down, the next meets over his bellybutton where the first one ends and extends so far down it’s swallowed by his pants.
He’s twice my height. That’s all I can think when I first look up at him. I’m wrong — at least, I hope I am — but it’s still what hits me first. And even though I hate him, his size alone gives me pause, makes me shiver, makes me want to lay all my secrets bare so that I don’t have to be punished by him when he figures out that I’m here for a rebellion.
And for revenge.
I pull my lips into my mouth and bite down on them. As I do, I notice a downward flicker of his. His mouth is large, almost comically so, and a dark, delirious pink. The wells of his eyes cast dark shadows across his cheeks, which are high and cut like shards of the black and green stones glimmering in the cave walls around us. Like his heavy eyelashes, his hair is inky black and falls down to his swollen shoulders. Tangled and raging, his curls rush like the River Styx. You are not Charon. You are Ero. You can be defeated.
Jia was shaking before, but now my own tremors are all I can feel as I finally force myself to meet his gaze, only to find that he’s not looking at me. He’s not looking at Jia either, but at our locked hands. I shake so badly that it pulls Jia further towards me. Without warning, the disturbed look Ero wore fades and he drops onto his haunches.
His shadow falls over me, blocking out the gold light filtering down from above. The scent of blood and sweat and salt perfume his skin. He smells like War itself. I want to close my eyes, but I’m riveted to the motion of his bloody knuckles as he produces a dagger from the belt at his waist. Short, it has a leather handle and a blackened blade.
He shouts an order that I can’t interpret and a demon approaches with a torch in her hands. Ero takes the dagger to the open flame, movements deliberate and slow as he waits for it to glow bright red.
“Oreyo yasibalu yaruella?” He chuckles and I hate the sound. It’s lovely and all I can think of is Lucifer. Lucifer was an angel once.
He brings his knife closer and closer and Jia and I both cringe away from the heat radiating out of the glowing steel, but in order to escape it we’d have to release each other’s hands and we don’t. It isn’t one of us, or the other, but both. We don’t know each other, but we don’t let go.
Ero’s mouth twitches, but this isn’t a male to make false promises. He brings the blade in, closer and closer, until it touches the insides of both of our wrists at the same time. The sight of it burning my flesh comes before the sensation of pain and my fingers lock when I should have spent those precious second trying to pry them open.
My brain lurches, but are slow to fire or maybe it’s just that the pain in my back makes this fresh agony hard to feel. Jia screams and collapses forward, but she doesn’t let go either. She still doesn’t. And I still don’t let go, not even as the smell of burning flesh wafts up to greet me. It clashes with the scent of the blue goop still clinging to my uniform, which reeks of antiseptic, but also with the stranger scents lingering beneath the blood and sweat and salt on his skin.
Woozy, I waver and strangely, I think that he smells like war, yes, but he also smells like Anubis. Just like Hades would in my dreams. He smells like minerals and grass and metal, like salt and like sea. He reeks of survival, of regret, of a paradise lost. He smells like an angel that fell. He smells like ruin.
Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.
The thought collides with the pain and pushes it back. Reduces it to rubble. A voice whispers those words in my head and I know that voice. I know it. Father. Father said that. He was repeating the words of a poet he loved and that poet was called…was callled…I stretch for memory, but come up short.
“Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.” I hear the words out loud, but this time in my own voice.
“Woga eh?” He rumbles, but I don’t answer or let myself be shocked by the nearness of his voice and his overwhelmingly sad presence.
Instead, I close my eyes and I let tears leak down my cheeks and I cry for him, for this Anubis, this devil lost at sea.
I cry for this place with its ruined soul and I repeat words that come to me, “My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.” It’s the same poet…something…something Jalal…el…something. He was my father’s favorite.
“Woga eh?” I open my eyes to see his chiseled face, his brow furrowed.
He must not like what he sees in mine because he bares his teeth at me like an animal, lips peeling back in rage. He yanks the brand away from my skin and Jia’s and a surge of breath rushes into my lungs along with the first taste of pain.
“Kedejiniliste?” His intonation tilts up in a question. I don’t understand the word, but I know he wants me to repeat what I’ve said.
I open my mouth, but as I look up at him and meet his bitter gaze, the words catch in my throat. I shake my head.
Khara. Khara khara khara. I know immediately that I made the wrong choice. It’s in his eyes. They’re storm cloud grey, reflective of the color of the steel he returns to my arm, but my arm alone.
“Just let go,” Jia whimpers, pained, but still trying for me.
But I don’t let go. I don’t speak or answer her or him, but I refuse to let go, just like I refuse to look down and see my skin burning. I just focus on the feeling of Jia’s soft hand in mine.
The mistake of my open defiance gets more grim the longer I stare into his eyes. A vein pulses across his forehead. The muscles twitch in his steely neck. His jaw sets and he presses his brand more fully below the wound he already made just below my elbow crease. Harder and harder and harder…
My eyelids flutter. He repeats his question, but I don’t. And it no longer has anything to do with the fact that the pain has blotted out the memory of the poem, making it impossible for me to recite, and everything to do with the fact that another word creeps front and center, past thoughts of mother and father, past thoughts of ha and jeem, past thoughts of language and who I am or what, and settles calmly in the center of my being.
Together. A reminder that Jia’s hand is in mine and even though memories have forsaken me for all the value that they had, there are new memories to be made, new foundations to fight from. I am not here alone.
We’re here together.
And if I’m wrong and he is Anubis of this new world, it will be together that our hearts are weighed.
We’ll find a way.
“Together,” I whisper. “Hamkke,” I repeat in Korean.
Jia’s hand squeezes mine harder and through the scent of burning flesh and the pain that threatens to eclipse all else, I hear her whisper, Hamkke back.
“Kedejiniliste?” He snarls between his teeth.
But my head is foggy. Reality starts a lazy retreat and I rock back onto my heels and let my head fall back as I continue to endure. I endure until the pain gets so overwhelming, I don’t feel it anymore. Dizzy, I open my eyes and in Amharic — the closest language to his that I can come up with without further study — I whisper, “Anidi laye.”
Together.
His nostrils flare and his storm cloud eyes glaze over with fear disguised as violence and they are the last thing I see before the dam breaks and the pain trickles in and drowns me.
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